The Divine and Roleplaying Games

Religion is a major interest of mine, and looking at it in roleplaying games fascinates me.  I'm quite prone to making characters with a strong faith, regardless of what the character's chosen profession is.  Rogue?  Faithful.  Magus?  Faithful.  Barbarian?  Faithful.  Vampire?  Faithful.  You get the idea.

In a recent discussion, we were discussing the difference between Judaism's God and the Shinto faith and their gods.  Basically, how the religion interacts (nominally) with their chosen people.

It came down to this:
Judaism
People:  We made an exclusive pact with God.
God:  Don't do the thing.
People:  We did the thing.
God:  *SMACK*  Don't do the thing.
People:  Okay... but we just did the thing.
God:  *SMACK*  Stop doing the thing.
People:  You mean this thing we just did?
God:  *SMACK!* Look, don't make me come down there.

Shinto
People:  So, yeah.  We did the thing.
Gods:  Are you spiritually pure?
People:  No?
Gods:  Go get purified.
People:  Done.
Gods:  We're cool.
People:  We did this other thing.
Gods:  Are you spiritually pure?
People:  Yes?
Gods:  We're cool.

So, extrapolating this.
Greek
People:  We did the thing.
Gods: Does it please us?
People:  Yes.
Gods:  Good, have this wonderful bounty!  Oh, and you're screwed.
People:  We did this other thing.
Gods:  Does it please us?
People:  No?
Gods:  You're screwed.
And...
People:  We didn't do anything.
Gods:  You're screwed.

So, amusingly, in most TTRPGs, gods are disembodied (sort of like Judaism), and dictate a series of rules (like Judaism and Greek religion), and if you don't do it right, you're either smited (Judaism) or screwed (Greek).  And the gods tend to meddle and intervene a whole lot, like with the Greek faith. I won't speak to the Celtic, Norse, etc, since I don't know them as well. I'd rather not talk about stuff I've not studied intently.

But anyway, back to TTRPGs.  It's interesting how there's typically this huge battle between 'good' and 'evil' on a divine level. That's very much a Zoroastrianistic thing. The battle of the light versus the dark (which slipped into Christianity). But... why should this be the norm for TTRPGs? I mean.. hell, even early Christianity didn't have the battle of 'good gods vs evil gods'. That just wasn't a thing.  So where did it come from.  I'm going to blame Tolkien.

My personal belief is that we should expand beyond that when it comes to fantasy RPGs.  Throw out the good/evil divide. The gods are the gods, they do what they do, which might be arguing with each other if of the same pantheon (Greek), leaving each other alone and looking after their own tribe (Judaic), or just not getting directly involved at all (Shinto).

I mean, the mortal races in most TTRPGs can cause enough trouble on their own without having the gods fighting for control of the mortal race. Evil gods don't need to drop demons into the world to stir up crap. That's a very... narrow... view of what you can do in a fantasy RPG.

And it's infected the industry.  Pretty much every fantasy RPG out there has 'demons' floating around to cause havoc, and evil gods to stir up crap. Pretty much every fantasy pantheon out there has their evil gods hellbent on destroying and conquering and bathing the world in blood and darkness.

As if, somehow, that's just how things are done.

For my games, I've made a lot of different pantheons, and my favourite one is the one where the 'evil' gods are a part of the system, serve a purpose, and are just as valid in society as the good gods.  Because they want to further the mortal populace's growth - they're just indifferent in what gets done along the way towards that goal and willing to have their followers smite anyone who gets in their way.  The good gods don't actually oppose the evil gods.  In fact, they work together a lot in a symbiotic relationship.

It's a lot more dynamic, complex, and interesting, I feel.
In another setting, the gods are effectively avatars - living, breathing creatures you can see and fight (and get slaughtered by). They don't have temples and churches, they have localised cults. They don't have ultra-disembodied divine forms, they can't level entire cities with a sweep of the hand or call down fire from the heavens or anything like that.  Not usually.  In fact, who and what they are, how they think, how they look, is completely dependent on what the mortal populace believes. The gods have no control over their state of existence.

It's kind of a horror scenario for the divine. And the mortals if they're not careful.

Anyway. Just some thoughts... shake things up a bit with the campaign, make the gods less 'out there over there and remote', less 'good vs evil'.  Look at pantheons out there in the world, and work around those concepts, maybe, and cling less to the Christian ethos.